“My fevered mind said, You must escape here. You must go down the slope somehow. You have to drop to the roofs below. That this creature, Petronia, meant to murder me, I had no doubt.

“I felt unconsciousness creep over me again, hot and dark and full of desperation. Some drug was working in me still that I couldn’t fight.

“Then, against the blue sky I saw the shadowy outline of a woman and I heard her talking low and fast in Italian and I felt a sharp stab in my arm. I saw the outline of the syringe in her hand as she held it up with a dainty gesture, and I wanted to protest but I couldn’t. And next I knew, she was shaving my face with a small electric razor that was like a noisy little animal running all over my upper lip and my chin.

“She was speaking to another woman in Italian, and though I spoke a little Italian I couldn’t tell what it was she was saying, only that she complained. Finally she moved to one side, and I could see her, and she was young and brunette and with an upturn to her eyes.

“ ‘Why you, I would like to know,’ she said to me with a thick accent. ‘Why not me after all this time? I serve and I serve, and she brings you to me and says make him ready. I am nothing but a slave.’

“ ‘Help me to get out of here,’ I said, ‘and I’ll make you rich.’

“She laughed. ‘You don’t even want it, and they’re giving it to you!’ she said scoffing. ‘And why? Because she has a whim.’ Her voice was soft but insistent. ‘Everything is a whim with her. To come. To go. To live in this palazzo. To live in that palazzo.’ She laid down the syringe. I heard the clink of metal. She lifted a long scissors. She cut a lock from my hair.

“ ‘What did you put into me?’ I asked. ‘Why did you shave my face? Where is Petronia?’

“She laughed, and so did another young woman who appeared on the left side of me, opposite. She was also slender, fashionable-looking and pretty of face, just like the one who was trimming my hair. She stood with her back to the light, her shadow falling over me.

“ ‘We should kill you,’ said the other woman, the new one, ‘so that she can’t do it. We could tell her that you died.’

“They both laughed at this joke uproariously.

“ ‘Why do you wish me harm?’ I asked.